Two surprises in the Czech Grand Prix at Brno, both tire-related. Marlboro Ducati’s Loris Capirossi rode new generation Bridgestone tires to decimate the field and Repsol Honda’s Nicky Hayden slid to ninth place, his worst of the year, on a rear Michelin that went away early and late.

Capirossi was brilliant. Jetting away at the start, the Italian added to his lead lap after lap, the gap growing to over eight seconds on the 18th of 22 laps.

He backed off in the final few laps to win by 4.902 seconds, the victory never in doubt. It was Capirossi’s first win since the opening round of the championship in Jerez de la Frontera, Spain.

The Italian said that his race pace had been good during practice, so he made a plan to try to get away early.

“The first couple of laps and I see my lap time is 58.1, 58.2, 58.3 and I take advantage always,” he said. “Well, I am a lot impressed about today. I’m thinking everything working so good.”

There were two battles behind Capirossi; Valentino Rossi and Dani Pedrosa for second and seven riders fighting for fourth.

Rossi spent all but a few corners in second. Pedrosa was briefly ahead, on the 18th lap, but Rossi didn’t let him settle in. The Camel Yamaha rider re-took the spot and cleared out in the final few laps, beating the Repsol Honda rider by just over three seconds.

“Yes, I’m happy, especially because we gain some important points to Nicky (Hayden),” Rossi said. With Hayden struggling down in ninth, Pedrosa was able to take back nine points, ending the day 25 points behind, 201 to 176. Rossi took even more, now in third and 38 points from the lead with five races to go.

“But you know when you start on pole position you always try to win for sure," Rossi continued. "But today Loris (Capirossi) was too fast. I try. My start was not one of the best. I was anyway second and I try my best. But Loris was faster from the beginning and very constant. I try to make my best and stay close to him and wait if his tires start to slide, but is very constant to the end. Every lap the distance become bigger. So we have some small problem this afternoon with more temperature, but we expect this. We try to fix this problems tomorrow and Tuesday for the next five races. After we make a great battle with Dani (Pedrosa), four or five good overtaking and I’m able to arrive second, so I’m happy of the result.”

Pedrosa said he lost a second late in the race when he made a mistake, then decided to settle for the secure third.

“It was a tough race because I started from ninth place on the grid,” Pedrosa said. “These two guys (Capirossi and Rossi) were already in front when I was recovering places. And when I arrived to the main group already Capirossi was gone. I think also nobody today could stay with him. But anyway, the second place I think I was able to make it, but at the end, after we were fighting for the second place, I miss one corner and I lost almost one second and then I couldn’t recover. So at the last lap I decided to finish third because I was too far from second place. “

Hayden told his crew chief Pete Benson that he began to lose grip six or eight laps in. Third until lap seven, Hayden lost the spot to teammate Pedrosa on lap eight, then one more spot to Fortuna Honda’s Marco Melandri on the ninth lap.

At that point he was in a pack of five riders, constantly changing places, though he was able to control his destiny. He moved back up to fourth on lap 13, then came the slide with a drop to sixth two laps later.

For the final five laps, Hayden’s rear tire problems accelerated. He dropped one more spot to seventh, on lap 19, then lost two more on the final lap, including eighth in the final corner to Kawasaki’s Shinya Nakano.

Meanwhile, Kenny Roberts Jr. was moving in the opposite direction. On the 19th lap Roberts went from seventh to fourth, where he finished for the second race in a row.

“I was hoping to be five seconds away from the leader at the end. I guess we’re still that little bit behind,” Roberts Jr. said after finishing 15 seconds from Capirossi. The team had experimented with various gas tanks during the weekend and Roberts Jr. had to adjust his riding position accordingly.

Melandri was in the shadow of Roberts Jr. at the end with LCR Honda’s Casey Stoner a close seventh.

Then came Rizla Suzuki’s John Hopkins, followed by Nakano. Camel Yamaha’s Colin Edwards was 10th.

MotoGP:

1. Loris Capirossi (Ducati)

2. Valentino Rossi (Yamaha)

3. Dani Pedrosa (Honda)

4. Kenny Roberts Jr. (KR211V)

5. Marco Melandri (Honda)

6. Casey Stoner (Honda)

7. John Hopkins (Suzuki)

8. Shinya Nakano (Kawasaki)

9. Nicky Hayden (Honda)

10. Colin Edwards (Yamaha)

cappirossi was on fire today, good for him he deserves it

the championship gets even more interesting, damn you earl!!!!

What's with SPEED channel? Barley showed some of the podium, and No freaking interviews!
Think I need to start scanning the sat's for a better feed.

Oh yeah! Good job Loris

they need to increase their coverage to 1h30 to cover the pre race and post race "action". We all know that's not going to happen, so for now I would rather take more racing and less of everything else.

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great race today. screw speed.. motogp.com for me.. full coverage w/out commercials.

great for rossi that hayden came in 9th but too bad pedrosa finished 3rd right behind him..

when he passes him in the championship standings, than talk


and whats the excuse as to why he got his ass handed to him by capirossi,

No excuses at all, he got beat fair and square.......:



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when Nicky gets more wins than Rossi's number of titles, then talk


no excuse, Capirex's just faster today

Btw... I will always give more credits to Capirex than Nicky, cause he has equal wins now, but he's on a Ducati/Bridgestone!

agree with above.

Vcycle got :mumowned

Rossi won today as CapiROSSI.

You guy's up north watch the GP on TSN????

No, I watch it on Speed as well. TSN only belives in Hockey and Golf.

yea that was a good one, +1

got nothing to do with this years championship though and ill say it again ive never said that nicky is as good a rider as val, and ill say this again i think val is the best ive ever seen and i think he is awesome, its just everyone riding his nuts even when he has a bad day and everyone slaming nicky even when he has a good day gets old

I noticed they had nsacar in car with TSN feed! Do you watch F1 on speed too?

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Depends, sometimes TSN will have the Canadian rights to F1 and Speed will be on blackout.

As much as I don't like Speed for all their CRAPCAR coverage I still prefer it to TSN.